The Usual Corporate Lobbyists Pretend to Be Grassroots Groups Against Health-Care Reform
So they're rolling out the heavy guns, hiding behind yet another astroturf front. I wonder why they're always hiding behind these fake grassroots organizations? Could it be they don't want people to know the kind of money the massive financial interests against health care reform are spending to stop it?
The new anti-health reform front group known as the Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights, is being managed by the lobbying firm known as the DCI Group. After being contacted by ThinkProgress this afternoon about its sponsorship of CPPR’s press conference last week, DCI Group staffers acknowledged that they coordinate PR for the front group. Not be confused with Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, another front group opposing health reform, CPPR has been organizing lobbying efforts against health reform and publishing op-eds across the country with misinformation about the public option.
Tom Synhorst, a former staffer to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Bob Dole, joined fellow right-wing operatives Doug Goodyear and Tim Hyde to form DCI Group in 1996. The firm quickly flourished working for the tobacco industry, coordinating a sophisticated astroturf campaign to build public opposition to tobacco regulations. Ironically, before helping to manage this “patients’ rights” campaign, DCI founded “Smokers’ Rights” groups across the country for the tobacco lobby. Indeed, DCI has specialized in manufacturing “grassroots” support — using telemarketers, PR events, and letter writing campaigns — to achieve policy results for narrow corporate interests:
– The DCI Group was retained by the pharmaceutical industry to whip up public opposition against House legislation that would permit the reimportation of FDA-approved drugs from Canada and elsewhere. [Washington Monthly, December/2003]
– The DCI Group worked with Republicans to form various “grassroots” front-groups to amplify President Bush’s call to privatize Social Security. [Center for Media and Democracy, 3/18/05]
– Chris LaCivita, a former DCI Group staffer, took a lead role in organizing the Swift Boat Veterans campaign to smear John Kerry and his war record. [CommonDreams, 8/31/04]
– The DCI Group was behind spoof videos mocking Al Gore and global warming. The firm has been retained by ExxonMobil to lobby. [Wall Street Journal, 8/3/06; Exxon Secrets, accessed 7/28/09
While it is unclear who is funding this latest CPPR front group, DCI has in the past worked for health insurance companies. In 2002, the American Prospect reported that DCI had been hired by the Health Benefits Coalition, a trade association of for-profit HMOs trying to “thwart congressional action on the patients’ bill of rights."
to the Lewn Group owned by Heathcare United?
The republican blue dogs and centrists are going to give the health industry want they are paying them millions for , just as they did with the banking empire...
What does it take by now to let you know that the blue dogs are not democrats and are republicans destroying our party and country.... Check their voting practices except for maybe the small bones they might vote for to use their bail and switch routine...
The blue dogs if you remember had a private meeting with Bush right after the 2006 election.... So if we were paying any attention at all they would have told the full story about what they were and what was their mission..
Now they are growing in numbers and control of our party thanks to the support of Emanuel..
Wonder if Emanuel has anything to do with Lieberman getting democrat support to win in his Independent run against Lamont in 2006...
Emanuel does not hold the democrat objectives and policies at heart, his is more republican than democrat and has proven it by his actions behind the scenes..
Just ask a blue dog , Lieberman , Health industry , The war hawks of the Iraq war , the war contractors like Halliburton , blackwater and Feinstein's husband dealing in the war contracts..
Also as long as we have centrists or wimps like Pelosi and Reid as leaders of our party we are going to fail.
If ,, Now that the democrats supposedly control the Presidency , Senate and the House of representatives and still passing republican-corporate policies and still letting our jobs be outsourced overseas ,,,we are going to be losers...
Democrats had better decide now that they are going to pick candidates to run against these republican-democrats which are destroying not only our party but helping republicans destroy our nation..
None
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The Thuglicanzi will stoop to anything, except a better idea.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Predatory capitalism wins again.
More shock and awe against American citizens.
"Your" government will not help you because it is no longer your government.
Governments are part of a dying paradigm.
The Imperial Trans National Corporation has supplanted the nation-state in terms of governing power.
The puppet government in DC is a buffer between the increasingly poor and miserable masses and the corporations that oppress the people.
The only health care for you and me is the kind where they make you piss in a jar - to see whether you go to prison or not.
If elections could effect change this dismal scene, you would not be allowed to vote.
It is going to take more than an election to change the course, acusla!
A demoralized citizenry is an obedient one.
Milton Friedman's skull is grinning, ironically...
Where the dogs of society howl
You can't get me in your Penthouse
I'm going back to my plow
Can we FINALLY get pissed off enough to do something besides piss and fuckin moan?
I'm not much of an organizer but have been looking for any orgs doing protests I could join up with. Any leads?
I've got the time coming up and would love to put it to use. Been donating to Bernie Sanders, writing letters, emails and all that jazz but would really like to wave a big sign and shout at the scoundrels.
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
DC is just a $30 bus ticket and 4 hours from NYC. I've been thinking of pulling a Cindy Sheehan and just parking my butt there - but I don't have a compelling story to get anyone interested and would probably just be locked up as a loitering loon.
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
unfortunately...
I'm sure someone on here would have better info than myself.
I sometimes wonder if having these blogs to vent our frustrations into makes the majority of us more complacent than we used to be. I mean, back in '82 over a million people marched in NYC over the somewhat abstract threat of nuclear weapons - we couldn't even get that for the Iraq War, we've had almost nothing for Wall Street's abuses, torture, spying... If American's won't even march for the sake of their own health what will motivate them to do so?
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
You may be onto somethin there....technology is a double edged sword for sure.
The expansion of health insurance and government entitlements created "free money" and thus the explosion of healthcare costs.
With no insurance or government program to bill vast sums, then every clinic, doctor and hospital in the U.S. would instantly go broke.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySjxZDT_5SA
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
history that you should be aware of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt0tKl0J-S4
...but state reps, too. And was the word "thwart" from a Luntz memo or what?
Fla. lawmakers want to thwart federal health plan
I have lived in Florida for 10 years, and cannot understand why people are forever wanting to change the state constitution to deny somebody else something. Just seems strange to me, I cannot recall this occuring when I lived in New England.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all
I did outsourcing/contract work for a PR firm that was hired by DCI during the roll out of the prescription drug card plan.
DCI had me doing the exact same thing they are now doing. We were instructed to put together so-called grassroots groups to help sell the prescription drug card BS! And guess what? Congresspeople and US Senators were also used to pretend they were doing it all for Senior Citizens when in fact it was done for BUSH's Re-Election Campaign and to funnel billions of dollars to big Pharma and Insurance Companies!
You would not believe what was said on the DCI conference calls and how unsuspecting people were used to sell the BS.. and the elected officials were all in the know and were often used in conference calls, etc.
They had us get signatures on letters we penned and lot's more. It was so disgusting I had to quit even though the $$ was great. The US Chamber of Commerce was onced the entity behind a lot of this nonsense. In fact, they put their name on a lot we did. DCI is by far the biggest player in this manipulation and they shpould be called for it. Still, I did enjoy the money they paid the PR firm that employed me... but it was so dishonest I had to pull the plug on it... yet the PR firm I worked for still fronts for them.
get this man an interview
It's amazing the lengths corporations will go to in order to protect the status quo. Even more amazing is the poor saps that buy into these schemes, even in opposition to their own best interests.
I'm very thankful that I live in Canada. Still, we have to battle constantly against the corporate invaders of Universal Healthcare.
Is CMPI Advance. They have about a dozen sites with stupid names like "PublicPlanFacts.org" and they're entirely funded by insurance companies and big Pharma.
One can only hope that those fighting to kill public health care will die slowly, painfully and in desperate need of it.
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